Houston’s Own Red Hot Dinner Party — Local Tastemakers Get Spicy with a Charleston Entrepreneur

Good Night Hospitality partners Bailey and Pete McCarthy rolled out the red hot carpet for Charleston-based Red Clay Hot Sauce’s CEO Molly Fienning with a dinner party at their Montrose restaurant Rosie Cannonball. The gracious dining room of Rosie Cannonball, designed by Studio Robert McKinley, is at its prettiest during golden hour, when the intense Texas sun casts a rosy glow on the gorgeous oiled white oak banquettes and ceiling trim, travertine slabs and crimson red tiled walls.

An intimate group of local tastemakers, including notable Houston chef Chris Shepherd, Bludorn and Navy Blue restaurants’ Aaron and Victoria Pappas Bludorn, Carrie Colbert of Red Clay Hot Sauce investor Curate Capital, culinary instructor and cookbook author Marcia Smart and fashion designer Hunter Bell — a friend of Fienning’s from South Carolina — were welcomed with spicy cocktails and gleaming red Negronis (Bailey’s signature drink) during this very hour on a recent Monday evening, when the Houston restaurant is normally closed.

Always one to exquisitely embrace a theme, Bailey McCarthy instructed guests to wear “red clay red” and the beautiful floral arrangements were bursting with peppers of myriad varieties. This dinner party plan was hatched in Charleston, when Fienning threw a fabulous fête for The Nat Note’s Natalie Steen in honor of the launch of her capsule collection with Dillards’ and Antonio Melani, at which McCarthy was in attendance, and they discussed a potential Houston visit.

Fienning says McCarthy called her the very next day to pick a date to make a trip happen, toasting to her “as a person who just literally shows up for her friends and makes magic happen.”

After cocktail hour, guests were seated at a long, dramatic table for a three-course meal crafted by Rosie Canonball complete with Red Clay Hot Sauce pairings. The first course included corn and shishito pizza, sausage and fennel pizza, and farm green salad served with hot sauces for the table (the Verde hot sauce was particularly good with the corn and shisito pizza). The second course consisted of smashed fried potatoes with Original Hot Sauce aioli, chicken Milanese with Original Hot Sauce dredge, grilled cabbage salad with Peach Hot Sauce dressing, and a bean salad.

Honey cake was served for dessert, served with Red Clay’s newest product: Spicy Peach Honey. Expert wine pairings accentuated the delicious dinner.

Fienning shared the story behind Red Clay Hot Sauce. Originally from New York City and the co-founder of Babiators, a children’s sunglasses line, Fienning had relocated to Charleston. She was at an oyster bar when she encountered chef and Georgia native (hence the Red Clay name) Geoff Rhyne’s “life-changing” hot sauce, with an emphasis on flavor rather than heat. Fienning was hooked.

The line is cold-pressed and raw, sustainably sourced, gluten-free and made in America. Entrepreneur Fienning knows a good thing when she sees is — or in this case, tastes it — and she partnered with Rhyne to bottle the hot sauce and share it with the world. Food & Wine has since dubbed it “Tabasco for the 21st century” and Jenna Bush Hager named it as one of her favorite things on Today.

Guests headed home with a gift bag from Montrose Cheese & Wine, filled with June’s Rose, multiple Red Clay Hot Sauce offerings, a Lagouile cheese knife, canned mussels and Iberian Ham-flavored potato chips.